Category Archives: Food

Completing a task.

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An aspect of contemporary experimental performance that we found particularly interesting is carrying out a task, predominantly impossible tasks. In Melati Suryodarmo’s ‘Exergie Butter Dance’, which is attached below, she dances for twenty minutes in high heels and a black tight dress on top of a platform made out of butter bars.

(Kunstbanken Hedmark Kunstenter 2013)

Suryodarmo stands on the butter and dances to the music of Indonesian drums. She dances and falls frequently, hitting the floor hard, when on the verge of standing back up she slips and falls back in the butter. When the time was up, she stood up and instead of carrying on dancing she stepped off the platform. Here she is simply performing and completing a task in front of an audience. Even though she does not possess a dancer physique she still pushes her body, with great confidence, in attempting such an impossible task. The idea of having a task and straightforwardly performing it was something we found very intriguing.

Such work influenced our own performance piece, where we first experimented with the task of putting jigsaws together. We started off with a 1000 piece jigsaw so we could all work together in the challenge to complete it. Something which we first imagined to be fairly easy turned out to be practically impossible. We gave ourselves two hours to complete the task, and in that time span not even half of the jigsaw was put together. Each of us would get frustrated when we could not find pieces to fit together, it took some people a good ten minutes before they found two pieces that fit. With this initial performance idea, we wanted to have our hands tied together in front of us, so it would hinder us and hold back complete use of our hands. The audience would see us challenging ourselves in such a simple task. However what may have looked simple actually turned out to be too impossible for us to think about carry on experimenting with, we got too aggravated with the puzzle and each other when we had the full ability of our hands never mind if we had them tied together.

Since taking part in the earlier experimental performance in class mentioned in a previous blog post, Marina Abramović has been a great influence in our early work; a vast amount of her performances were concerned with exploring the limits of the human body. Specifically her own. In an article on Abramović, Maureen Turim states that “She methodically sets out to perform an act that has clear parameters and goals” (2003, p. 105), Abramović always sets out to do a task and knows what she is aiming for in the performance.  We also wanted our performance to have these ‘clear parameters’. Another experiment was carried out in our group. Each of us was interested in taste buds and the different foods which we liked and disliked. This was something we could play around with, what was appealing was that there were certain foods which some of us could not stomach or even think about eating.  The challenge here is what would happen if we were made to eat those certain items of food? We wanted to push our bodies physically, and if that meant we would vomit then that would be one of the consequences. In experimenting with this we each brought an item of food which we liked and one which we did not, and they were all put on a table. We knew what each other did not like so we brought a small audience in who had completely no idea. They were to choose an item and give it to a person of their choice to eat it. We each received a fork full of sardines, something which none of us could stomach. Because we were given it, we had no choice but to eat it, causing gagging, eyes watering and even hyperventilation when it came to my turn. When we got given food which we in fact did like such as marshmallows and apples, our reactions were completely different as it was easy to eat unlike the sardines which I struggled to even put them in my mouth. The small audience found our different reactions fascinating to watch, and also the great power they felt in choosing the food. In exploring this idea, we wondered what would happen if you gave people food that they did like but in a large quantity, would our reactions be different and would the food become too sickly to stomach?  This is something we aim to carry on exploring in future experiments.

Below are the photos of the two experiments we took part in:

1383817_10152038481832915_667238247_n Eating

(Taken by Kirsty Jakins: 29.10.13) (Taken by Lauren Watson: 6:11.13)

Work Cited

Kunstbanken Hedmark Kunstenter (2013) Melati Suryodarno “Exergie – Butter Dance” [Online Video] Available from http://vimeo.com/46277791 [Accessed 9 November 2013]

Turim, M. (2003) Marina Abramović’s Performance: Stresses on the Body and Psyche in Installation Art, Camera Obscura, 18 (54) 98-117.

Tasks.

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Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s article on Playing to the Senses: Food as a Performance Medium discusses the use of food as a performative medium and the various ways in which food has been used as art. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett states that

“to perform is to do, to execute, to carry out to completion, to discharge a duty–in other words, all that governs the production, presentation, and disposal of food and their staging. To perform in this sense is to make food, to serve food. It is about materials, tools, techniques, procedures, actions. It is about getting something done.” (Gough, 2012, p. 1)

This definition rings true in our performance on a number of levels. Firstly the “task” of our performance is for the eaters/gainers to complete the task of eating as much food as they can in a given amount of time. The idea of fulfilling a task in our performance was one that our group decided to focus on from very early on in the devising process, having been influence by artists such as Melati Suryodarmo, who’s performance Exergie- Butter Dance might be considered an extreme example of how the act of completing a set task with rules or time restrictions can be a very entertaining spectacle.

(Carey Goodman, 2012)

In watching this performance I found myself going through stages of reaction. First I laughed, because the concept of dancing on butter was strange to me and entertaining to watch. Yet as she started to fall I became uncomfortable. I did not like to see her inflict pain on herself, yet I was mesmerised by the movement and music to the point where I could not look away. It struck me that in completing her set task she was also pushing herself physically to the point of pain but also mentally; knowing that in completing this task you are going to fall and hurt yourself multiple times when you could just as easily walk away would take will power.

While I do not think that the butter in Exergie-Butter Dance influenced our choice to use food in our performance, our aims to push the body to complete a task soon lead us to eating as a challenge.

While Abramovic and Mary Coble have created art using the human body as a canvas, artists such as Fiona Gregore in her piece Water # 1: Decent (2011) create their pieces by pushing their body’s physical and mental endurance without mutilating or putting their bodies in obvious pain or danger. Pushing yourself mentally is a challenge that others can see if you allow them to, but it can be purely internal and private. So what would happen if we pushed our internal body?
We decided to start with the taste buds.
In our original ideas on creating tasks with food we looked into forcing ourselves to eat food we didn’t like. I for example cannot stomach bananas, even the smell makes me feel ill, and so in this experiment I had to force myself to eat one. As you can see below my feelings towards the food had not changed.

Eating

Photo by Andrew Tinley, 2013

 

The experiment wasn’t pleasant for anyone, including our voluteer audience. But it was fascianting. One of the most disturbing things about this experiment was how interesting it was to see each others reactions to the food that they were eating. The discusted facial expressions and noises of protest coupled with a determination that each of us should complete our task made for a mesmerising experience.

 

Word Count

Gough, R (2012) Playing to the Senses: Food as a Performance Medium. Performance Reasearch. On Cooking, 4, 1.

Carey Goodman (2012) Melati Suryodarmo – Butterdance. [online video]. Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73MJxB7tCkk [Accessed 1 Novemeber 20213].

Frustration In One Thousand Pieces…And Sardines.

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When thinking of a performance or experiment, I was instantly drawn towards the idea of a task. Completing a task, or setting a physical challenge that had to be completed, despite obstacles or impediments which may affect the process. When thinking of a task, a durational performance offers much more to both performer and audience member, than one which is time restrained. “The phrase ‘durational art’ implies a specific construction of time, a deliberate shaping of it to effect a particular experience for the viewer or the audience” (Scheer 2012, p.1), and it is the construction or deconstruction of time which I believe has the possibility to hold the most performance potential.

Melati Suryodarmo’s ‘Butter Dance’ experimental performance, although uncomfortable to watch, made for fascinating and compelling viewing. Every time she falls you inwardly gasp, wondering if she is going to get back up again; if anything is broken or if she will just give up on her set task because the pain and bruises become too much.

This performance of (as a concept) a simple task is captivating. No façade or artsy pretence; just one woman deciding to dance on butter, in heels, to the beat of a steady rhythm. Experimental performances such as these “mark identities, bend time, reshape and adorn the body, and tell stories” (Schechner 2002, p. 28), even without a vocal narrative. And this is something I wanted to explore further; to have a task set, and for it to be completed in front of an audience. The first idea which materialised within the group was that of completing a jigsaw.

P1010352(Photo taken by Lauren Watson: 28.10.13)

Initially, we wanted to develop this idea into a more performative piece, with the use of multiple jigsaws (one for each member of the company to complete), while all being in one pile, with us not being able to leave the space until your own jigsaw was completed. However, after just 40 minutes of attempting and failing to complete just one 1000 piece jigsaw between the six of us, this idea quickly dissipated. Although it started off as a novel and slightly entertaining task, our excitement and positive outlook quickly disappeared, and in its place we were left with fits of anger, an almost constant stream of expletives and multiple urges to throw the puzzle pieces out out of any window we could find.

Eating(Photo taken by Andrew Tinley: 31.10.13)

With the jigsaw idea well and truly buried for the sanity of everyone involved, we then turned to food, and the idea of feeding and being fed. For our first experiment we each brought two items of food; one which we liked, and one which we hate. We then placed all these items on a table, and got an impromptu audience member to give each one of us an item of food.

Russian Roulette with food.

As seen in the above image, not everyone received foods they liked or bought for themselves. For this experiment to work, it was imperative that the ‘audience member’ didn’t know our likes and dislikes, this way they could not be biased when handing out the food. From this experience, the magnitude of what we wanted to achieve really started to make itself apparent. Eating is a day-to-day task, without which we wouldn’t survive…but what happens if we over indulge in this life saving task; forcing ourselves to eat food which repulsed us. Even though this experiment lasted merely minutes it was a difficult process, with members of the group retching and fighting down sick. Even though this would make for a personally difficult experiment for us as performers, it wouldn’t be all that stimulating or enjoyable for the audience. Therefore, from this experiment we decided to choose foods which we liked, but to eat them in abundance.

Theatre, and especially contemporary experimental performance “have been deployed as key metaphors and practices with which to rethink gender, economics, war, language, the fine arts, culture and one’s sense of self” (Ridout 2009, p. vii), and this is hopefully what we hope to achieve, although physically we are just completing a task which we have all agreed upon; to eat. Eating is a necessity. A vital part to any life. However, some people go days without eating, while other gorge themselves to death. And for 6 average sized girls to potentially gorge themselves to the point of sickness starts to question the social position of food, alongside that of young women, while also on one level questioning and challenging body image acceptance. Why would six, healthy girls who care about their image and size want to binge? These are questions which we hope the audience wills start to ask themselves, after all, “to witness an event is to be present at it in some fundamentally ethical way, to feel the weight of things and one’s own place in them, even if that place is simply, for the moment, as an onlooker” (Etchells 1999, p. 17).

Works Cited
Etchells, Tim (1999) Certain Fragments, London: Routledge.
Ridout, Nicholas (2009) Theatre & Ethics, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schechner, Richard (2002) Performance Studies: an introduction, London: Routledge.
Scheer, Edward (2012) ‘Introduction: The end of spatiality or the meaning of duration’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, XVII (5) October:  pp. 1-3.